While the 19th century has been called the age of colonialism, the
20'h century is often identified with processes of de-colonization
and postcolonialism inasmuch as this time coincides with the creation of
post-independence states emerging in vast number after World World II.
(1) However, colonialism and post-colonialism became contested sites
very early on. The debate on the use of the term post-colonialism has
been particularly lively, both with regard to the use of the hyphen and
especially the prefix "post" which carries a temporal but also
an ideological meaning. While in its temporal use, the prefix reflects
the formal end of the age of colonialism, as in the formation of
post-independence nations, it also implies that the relations of power
of colonial rules have been supplanted, something that, as Loomba
reminds us, is not the case.(2) But besides the use of problematic
prefixes, the terms colonialism and post-colonialism have come to exert
something of a homogenizing effect. As Hodge, Mishra, Chrisman, and
Williams (3) have rightly argued, these terms bring, within a single
field of enquiry, experiences and relationships of colonization and
post-colonization which vary greatly among different cultures and
therefore demand precise attention to locality and context. It is in the
spirit of the need to uncover the multiplicity of modes of colonialism
and its presumed aftermaths that I would like to make a case for a
re-reading of Girolamo Arnaldi's Italy and Its Invaders.

Published in 2002 by Laterza and issued in English translation by
Harvard University Press (2005), this is a work that merits careful
attention. At a time when colonial and post-colonial studies are gaining
ever wider currency among scholars of Italianistica on both sides of the
Atlantic, Italy and Its Invaders contributes in significant ways to a
reflection on the complex cluster of meanings that the terms colonialism
and post-colonialism imply in an Italian context. In ten chapters
surveying the history of invasions of the Italian peninsula,
Arnaldi's study foregrounds Italy's centuries--long existence
as a colony, rather than focusing on 19th and 20th century colonialism
and the post-colonial era that followed the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947.
(4) Otherwise stated, this work does not aim to uncover the hidden
episodes of the Italian colonization of Libya, Eritrea, Ethiopia,
Somalia, Albania and, partially, Greece in the tradition of historians
Nicola Labanca, Giorgio Rochat, Angelo Dei Boca (5) and their ever
growing American disciples. (6) Rather, Italy and Its Invaders
reconstructs the many layers of invasions that took place on the Italian
peninsula from the sack of Rome to Unification while accounting for the
ways in which violent encounters between people and cultures led to that
inevitable mix constituting what we have come to know as Italian culture
and civilization. In this sense, then, Arnaldi's volume achieves
several objectives: On the one hand, it brings to the fore centuries of
foreign domination that must be taken into account in any discussion of
the shapes and forms of Italian colonialism and its aftermath. On the
other hand, the frequent reminders of the interaction between invader
and invaded carries with it a subtle but important message for
contemporary Italy, where the arrival of migrants is leading to a
dangerous resurgence of myths of an Italian identity based on cultural
and territorial belonging and, at times, even ethnic purity. I will
return to both of these points later on, but for the moment, let me
describe Arnaldi's work more closely.

In the first chapter, "From the Sack of Rome to Odoacer,
'King of the Nations'," Arnaldi lays bare the episteme
that informs his study by focusing on a major arrival of invaders: the
descent upon and sack of Rome by Alaric, the King of the Visigoths, in
410. Arnaldi describes the massacre that ensued while reminding readers
of the migratory flow that followed, as wealthy Romans sought refuge in
Egypt, Africa, and the East. Arnaldi then turns his attention to the
kingdom of Odoacer, a Germanic general and the first non-Roman ruler of
the Italian peninsula. In what will become something of a pattern in
this book, Arnaldi also provides examples of cultural mixing resulting
from invasions, such as the adoption, on the part of the Romans, of the
Barbarians' fashion of wearing trousers and leather boots, and the
Barbarian culture's permeability to Roman customs. It is
Arnaldi's contention that mixed marriages played a fundamental role
in the creolization of culture and while many of the marriages between
Barbarians and Romans were arranged, their offspring often revealed
mixed cultural and political allegiances. In this sense, Arnaldi points
to early forms of hybridization, that is, a mutual construction of
subjectivities between diverse people, as described by Homi K.
Bhabha's The Location of Culture. The practice of according
Barbarians the status of hospites further increased mixing. In the hope
of somehow controlling the flow of invaders, Western emperors would
often give Barbarians a portion of the land of a given province. It was
this mechanism of hospitalitas that facilitated the arrival of
Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths (493-526). The topic of chapter two,
"Ostrogoths, Romans of Italy and Romans of the East,"
Theodoric came to Italy encouraged by the Eastern Emperor Zeno. By 569,
the Italian peninsula was again the stage of another invasion, that of
the Longobards led by King Alboin. Discussed in chapter three, "The
Longobards in War and Peace and the Temporal Dominion of the Popes and
of Venice," this invasion appears to have been marked by a wish on
the part of the invaders to settle permanently. In fact, unlike others
tribes, the Longobards came to the Italian peninsula with their families
and rapidly put down roots. While they continued to cultivate their
traditions as a distinct people, they were much influenced by local
cultures and customs. For example, they started using local utensils
and, more importantly, abandoned the use of oral traditions and of
primitive graphic characters, or runes, and began to record their
customs and history through writing. As with other invaders, however,
the Longobards not only absorbed the culture of the people they invaded,
but shaped it as well, leaving many traces of their presence on the
peninsula, from place names to the word casa which replaced the Roman
domus for dwelling. The process of "reciprocal adaptation"
(35) and the inevitable intermingling that took place was clear by the
early seventh century, when the possibility of converting Longobards to
Catholicism became a reality. After the marriage of Catholic Princess
Theodolinda with Longobard king Authari first, and king Agiluf second,
Catholic churches were built in Longobard castles. A son of Theodolinda
even received a Catholic baptism. By the eighth century, cultural
intermingling was such that the Catholic idea of sin had appeared in
Longobard legislation.

Meanwhile, the popes were increasingly positioning themselves as
the centers of the temporal power of the Roman Church. Keenly aware of
the possibility of an attack on Rome by the Longobards, they engaged in
daring political alliances with the Franks. Emphasizing again how the
arrival of invading forces on the Italian peninsula was also the result
of invitations, Arnaldi comments that the popes sought the invasion of
the Franks to guarantee the independence of Rome from the Longobards.
Arnaldi's fourth chapter explores more in depth the relationships
between the popes and the Franks. Entitled "In the Empire of
Charlemagne and Within the Shelter of the City Walls," this chapter
describes the arrival of Charles in the summer of 773, his siege of
Pavia, the capital of the Longobard Kingdom, and his uniting of the
Longobard and Frankish kingdoms into a single hand. In the years that
followed the arrival of Charles, Bavarian, Burgundian, and Aleman
aristocracy joined the Franks in securing territories and holdings in
Italy in competition with Longobards and Romans. Over the years, this
creolization led to the constitution of a ruling class that was
profoundly multiethnic, "a class that would govern the country for
centuries to follow" (56). But there was also another social and
cultural change brought about by the people from the North of the Alps:
the agrarian regime of rural lordship. This important development,
however, did not extend to Southern Italy since, with the
Aghlabids' conquest of Sicily during the 9th century, the island
entered into the Arab Muslim area of influence. The arrival of the
Aghlabids (mostly Arab and Berber subjects), was, according to Arnaldi,
not so much the result of religious fanaticism but an expansion due to
the growing aridity of Arab and Berber lands, an invasion prompted by
climate change. As in other chapters, Arnaldi mentions the Sicilian
words that have an Arabic origin but also the different types of
pre-capitalist modes of production introduced by the Arabs, including
the ownership of small landholdings. Just as in the case of other
invaders, Arabs and Berbers abandoned their semi-nomadie customs and
merged with the local populations in time, introducing into the Sicilian
landscape the cultivation of sugarcane, citrus, dates, mulberry trees,
and cotton. However, in addition to the Arabs, or "Saracens",
as they were often called, other groups began to arrive, such as the
Normans and the Hungarians, the latter raiding the Po Valley and the
regions of the Tuscan-Emilian Appennine. Post-Carolingian times
witnessed a great breakdown in public order and the rise of local
initiatives to protect people and possessions, such as the
fortifications and the rebuilding of city walls during the 10th century.
Different from the fortifications of the medieval castles, these changes
in the architectural landscape were yet another effect of invasions. By
the end of the 10th century, voluntary local associations and
governments began to spread, eventually giving rise to the communes.
Chapter five, "Germans at Legnano, Normans in Southern Italy and
Sicily," describes how at the beginning at the 12th century, the
communes, which by then had well established legal, juridical, and
administrative institutions, joined together as the "Lombard
League" against the German emperor Barbarossa who claimed to be, as
other German kings had, the heir of the Caesars of ancient Rome. As
Arnaldi recalls, the fight of the communes against the emperor was
fundamental to the "dawning Italian national identity" (87).
However, while the communes were asserting their independence, the
Kingdom of Sicily in Southern Italy was established under the Norman
King Roger II of Hauteville. Arnaldi traces the events that led to the
invasion of Byzantine Calabria and Arab and Berber Sicily, focusing on
the military campaigns of Robert Guiscard and his younger brother Roger.

In the following chapter, "The Meteor Frederick II and the
Bitter 'Chickpeas' of the French in Sicily", Arnaldi
describes the discontent of Frederick Barbarossa with the Norman kingdom
of Sicily and the ensuing politics of dynastic marriages that led to the
wedding of Barbarossa's son, Henry, whom he named as his successor,
with Constance of Hauteville, the daughter of Roger II. Henry and
Constance's son, the famed Frederick II, is discussed at some
length by Arnaldi who describes the cosmopolitanism of Frederick's
court and stresses the process of identification of this king with
Sicily despite the fact that he was the son of a Sicilian-Norman mother
and a Swabian-German father. Arnaldi also comments on the king's
handling of the territorial monarchy of Sicily without seeking its
integration in the Empire. In this sense, the kingdom represents an
early case or a European nation-state. The remainder of the chapter
discusses the history of the kingdom after the death of Frederick. As
they had done with the Longobards, the Popes sought to prevent German
kings from ruling by urging the arrival of Charles of Anjou, the brother
of Louis IX, King of France. The Angevins moved the capital from Palermo
to Naples, marking what Arnaldi calls "the 'Parisian'
destiny of Naples" (113). The city became a center for the spread
of Gothic art, originally from French soil, but Charles's ambitions
led to ever increasing taxes, as he considered the South of Italy and
Sicily as a resource to plunder, appropriating and distributing the land
to his French and Provencals subjects. With the Angevins, Arnaldi
comments, "the financial and economic inferiority of Southern Italy
began to solidify, marking the beginning of [...] one of the main traits
of the less advanced of the two 'Italys'" (114). Arnaldi
proceeds to discuss the uprising of the Vespers on Easter of 1282, when
the Sicilians rose against French rule and invited the intervention of
another foreign monarch, Peter III of Aragon who, through marriage,
could make some legitimate claims on the crown of Sicily. By 1435, the
Angevins dynasty of Naples came to an end, and the Aragonese King of
Sicily Alphonse also became King of Naples.

In chapter seven, "The Chalk of Charles VIII and the Lance of
Fieramosca," Arnaldi argues that the restructuring of powers on the
Italian peninsula did not lead to the creation of a national state under
one sovereign but, rather, to larger and lesser states, including the
Duchy of Milan, the republic of Venice, the republic of Florence, the
Papal States, and the Kingdom of Naples. These states often engaged in
expansionist attempts but some sort of equilibrium would be reached with
the Peace of Lodi (1454) and the establishment of the Italian League,
both seen as guarantees "against the appetites and the armies of
the powers to the North of the Alps" (125). Foreign armies,
however, continued to descend into Italy. In the words of Francesco De
Sanctis' Storia della letteratura italiana, cited by Arnaldi,
"Charles VIII rode into Italy and conquered it 'with
chalk' [...]. And Italy was bled by Frenchmen and Spaniards and
Swiss and Landknechts until, with the fall of heroic Florence, the whole
of the country was in the hands of the foreigner" (130). Chapter
eight, "Milan and Naples in the Castilian Empire," begins with
an assessment of the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis (1559) that sanctioned
the Spanish dominance over Italy. This was a dominance that resulted in
the adoptions of many Spanish customs, such as the duel to settle
disputes, the practice of pomp to exhibit one's possessions, or
even the corrida, or caccia al toro. Several Neapolitan words also
record the Spanish occupations, including the words lazzaro, camorrista,
and guappo. Chapter nine, "The Austrians and the Lombardo-Venetians
Kingdom," focuses on the seismic changes brought about by the 18th
century wars of succession, when Austria replaced Spain in Milan,
Naples, and Sardinia. Sicily, however, escaped Austrian control. The
English, who had commercial activities in the Mediterranean, had
installed on the throne the Savoy King Victor Amadeus II. Nevertheless,
the Austrians had a direct presence in Lombardy while the Bourbons and
the Hapsburg controlled Parma, Florence, and Naples. As Arnaldi
comments, "Once again, Italy was the passive object of the wishes
of other states, which used the peninsula as a field of battle"
(168).

The state of Italy as an object of wishes on the part of others was
made amply clear during the Napoleonic period when the plundering of
artifacts went hand in hand with territorial and constitutional
reconfigurations. Yet, as Arnaldi writes, this was also the time when
the idea of Italy as a defined cultural entity became a political
program. Arnaldi, however, does not provide a full picture of the
Risorgimento, that is, the events that led to the constitution of an
Independent Italian nation-state but chooses to highlight a few defining
moments in the concluding chapter of the volume, "A Pseudoconquest
and a True Liberation", that covers the period from Unification in
1860 to 1944. The early portions of this chapter highlight the
perception of many Southerners that the unification of the peninsula
under the Piedmontese king was a conquest. Southerners' discontent
was matched by those who had supported a democratic and republican
Italian state. Arnaldi cites the writings of Diomede Panataleoni who
described the arrival of the Piedmontese in Rome as an event generating
feelings of invasion. But Arnaldi also notes that the worst enemy that
came from Unification and its aftermath was an internal one: Fascism.
The chapter concludes with a reflection on the period after 1944, when
no foreign armies have entered the country but Italy is, once again, the
destination of newcomers, of migrants "trying to flee wars,
tyranny, underdevelopment, and massacres in the Balkans, the Middle East
or the Maghreb" (201). Citing Marc Bloch's Feudal Society
(1939), Arnaldi concludes by reminding readers that just as the modern
Western civilization was formed by invasions, so the arrival of the
migrants offers Italy hope for change and renewal.

As this overview suggests, Italy and its Invaders has much to offer
to the current debate on colonialism and its aftermath. By reframing
colonialism and migration in pre-modern terms, it foregrounds the need
to examine the multiple legacies of colonialism in an Italian context,
forcing colonial and post-colonial scholars to focus their attention not
only on 19th and 20th century Italian colonialization of Africa, but
also on the well-documented existence of Italy as a pre-modern colony, a
place of uninterrupted invasions and plundering occurring from 410 to
the Unification under the Savoy kings. This is a dimension of Italian
cultural history that has not been elaborated by the collective culture.
Unification has been endlessly narrated as a project of national
collective emancipation and resurgence as opposed to what Antonio
Gramsci, almost at the beginning of The Southern Question, described as
the Northern bourgeoisie's subjugation of the South of Italy and
its reduction to an exploitable colony.7 The mass exodus that followed
the creation of the Italian nation-state in 1860, would be folded into a
second chapter of colonialism, a colonialism that now looked outside the
Italian peninsula, towards the African territories seen as the solution
to transoceanic migration, a way to "reclaim(ed) the emigrant
masses by recasting them as conquering warriors rather than discarded
surplus" (Verdicchio 48). By 1912, Italy political program led to
the proclamation of its sovereignty over Tripolitania and Cyrenaica and,
with the fall of the Liberal State and the advent of Fascism, African
colonialism entered its most violent phase: the declaration of the
Italian empire of East Africa (AOI) in 1936, a territory that
encompassed Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia. However, the dark side of
Unification and the global migration that followed has been marked by
removal and repression while Italy's expansion into Africa has been
literally archived till very recently as mainstream culture cultivated
the idea of Italians as brava gente, or good people, and of their
colonialism as straccione, that is to say, on the cheap and somehow
benign.

Yet, in this epochal moment of migratory movements through and
within Italy, the founding moments of Italian-ness can no longer be
forgotten and archived. Through the history that Arnaldi sketches, the
Italian cultural heritage emerges as the product of hybridizations and
creolizations brought about by the often violent encounters with
Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Longobards, Franks, Arabs, Berbers, Normans,
Hungarians, Austrians, Spaniards, French, Provencals, and Swiss, among
others. To acknowledge Italy's history as the site of persistent
invasions and Italian civilization as molded by a web of encounters with
an external other in language, habits, and customs, but also
agriculture, economics, architecture, and more, is an important step to
counter the present-day fermentation of discourses of Italian national
identity based upon imaginary notions of shared civic values, a
territory linked to a common culture and, at times, even a genealogical
descent. Triggered by the arrival of waves of immigrants on Italian
soil--many of them coming from former European colonies, Italian and
non, in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin
America--this fermentation of national myths of spacial, cultural, and
ethnic belonging has gone hand in hand with a rigidifying of juridical
borders and frontiers regulating and redrawing the boundaries between
the inside and the outside, the native and the foreign body, the self
and the Other. This problematic cultural and political terrain renders
Arnaldi's work most timely. By revisiting the founding moments of
Italian history, it foregrounds how modern definitions of Italian
identity cannot and should not be divorced from multiple colonial
legacies. This re-opening of the pre-modern archive of colonialism is a
forceful gesture to confront Italy's long existence as a colony and
perhaps contains the promise of an authentic post-coloniality, not in
the temporal sense of coming after colonialism but in the ideological
sense of overcoming colonialism in a peaceful, more hospitable encounter
between the former colonized and the newer subjects of recent
colonization and migration. In the words of Franco Cassano,
Arnaldi's book reminds us that "the Other has not landed for
the first time on our shores [...]. In a land where many others have
arrived, there is no monolithic and pure 'we' to defend from
the snare of the Other. [...] arrivals and departures ... [t]urn the
many people of the Mediterranean--and luckily not only them--into
incurable mongrels, into the antithesis of any purity, integrity and
fundamentalism: Our 'we' is full of Others". (8)

(1) See the entry "post-colonialism/post-colonialism" in
Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin 186-192. For a succinct historical
overview of colonialism and post-colonial state formation, I refer the
reader to Pavanati, Colonialismo.

(2) "[I]f the inequities of colonial rule have not been
erased, it is perhaps premature to proclaim the demise of colonialism. A
country may be both postcolonial (in the sense of being formally
independent) and neo-colonial (in the sense of remaining economically
and/or culturally dependent) at the same time," Loomba,
Colonialism/Postcolonialism 12.

(3) See Chrisman and Williams, Colonial Discourse and Post-colonial
Theory as well as Hodge and Mishra, The Dark Side of the Dream.

(4) This was the year when Italy had to abandon all claims to its
colonies, entering the era of a (chronological) post-colonialism without
undergoing the loss of territories in processes of post-independence
state formation as other colonial powers, such as France, Great Britain,
and Belgium did.

(6) I am referring to the work of Mia Fuller, Ruth Ben-Ghiat,
Patrizia Palumbo, and others. Representative publications are the
volumes Italian Colonialism, edited by Ben-Ghiat and Fuller, and A Place
in the Sun, edited by Palumbo.

(7) "[T]he Northern bourgeoisie has subjugated the South of
Italy and the Islands, and reduced them to exploitable colonies
..." (Gramsci 1995, 16).

(8) Cassano, Southern Thought and Other Essays on the Mediterranean
(unpaginated manuscript, forthcoming).

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